


The Psychology of Letting Go

by Starburned



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Annie-Centric, Epic Friendship, Internal Conflict, Multi, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-23
Updated: 2013-07-23
Packaged: 2017-12-21 04:21:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/895765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starburned/pseuds/Starburned
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two once important people find their way back into Annie's life; digging up traits she's tried hard to bury and forcing her to reexamine those around her. Not related to 2x03; just a fitting title. Annie centric.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Psychology of Letting Go

**Author's Note:**

> For Ella and Emma, the Annie and Britta to my Abed. :)

* * *

**Prologue**

* * *

Annie had never seen the Riverside Apartments after dark, or at least not at this early an hour. It was quiet, still, and pitch black from the lobby up. There were no drunks passed out on the benches, no "entrepreneurs" peddling questionable products out their cars; nothing remotely reminiscent of the night life surrounding her old place. For once she wished there was. It would certainly make matters easier now.

It seemed to Annie that every typical sound; the slight creak of the front doors, the clack of her flats against the linoleum, the ding of the elevator, was amplified a hundredfold with no one else around to hear it. That was what bothered her the most. Despite the fact that Annie knew she was completely alone, she swore she could still feel eyes on her.

She chalked it up to the paranoia that came with guilt, but still couldn't shake the feeling. Her stomach was twisted in knots of bad decisions and apprehension of the new experience. Annie Edison wasn't exactly one to make a habit of sneaking in at three in the morning. Then again, Annie Edison wasn't one to engage in a one night stand with someone she was supposedly over. But she had done that without a second thought.

Not thinking was what had started all this, she decided. Annie had been told not to over think things most her life. "Go with the flow," had been the sage advice of many she considered much wise than herself. But the moment she had let go, everything had gone south. It was like the Caroline Decker ordeal all over again; only there was no alcohol to blame this time.

There was no one but herself to blame for the painfully sluggish pace at which she tiptoed into apartment 303. Annie half expected to see her roommates sitting living room with the lights off, waiting for her. She was relieved when she found the room abandoned, and further reassured when she could hear snoring from the blanket fort.

Annie quickened her stride, desperate to get to finally get to sleep. Once she was finally inside her room she didn't even bother to change into the fuzzy pajamas she had laid out that morning, and instead just stripped down to her cardigan and underthings before plopping into bed. She felt to drained bother with buttons and the bright pink floral print seemed childish now; the very last thing she wanted to be feeling.

Annie pulled the similarly designed covers over her and willed for sleep to come. All the while trying her very best not to think of the two people who had recently reemerged in her chaotic life.

* * *

**Part 1**

* * *

Excluding the time they'd stayed up all night for a Next Generation marathon, there had only been one occasion where Annie had woken later than both of her roommates. Shed' had the flu to blame that time. Last night had involved a very different kind of staying in bed.

If the boys had noticed Annie's tardiness, they didn't mention it. Then again, very little was ever said during the first hour of Saturday morning cartoons. There was a moment of much needed peace as the only adventure happening in apartment 303 was on television.

Ordinarily, Annie enjoyed these mornings of sugary breakfast foods and cartoon violence her childhood had been missing. But on a day like this one, the routine only added to her stress. Troy and Abed's synchronized munching and goofy expressions seemed only endearing in the way Dumb and Dumberer was a necessary sequel. It wasn't. No matter how many times Troy insisted it was.

The dull and incessant pain of a more familiar occurrence in Annie's childhood soon followed her annoyance. She groaned, fittingly stressed by her blossoming tension headache. She was almost relieved when the uncommon sound of the landline's ring gave her an excuse to leave the room. Relieved for a full five seconds until she realized who was likely calling her.

There was no point in answering the call. No foreseeable good it could do Annie. But her self-disgust being at the level it was, the logic fell on selectively deaf ears.

After a quick glance at her preoccupied roommates, Annie rose to answer the phone. It was rare that the thing wasn't let to go directly to voicemail. The only reason that the trio had a landline at all was the combined facts that Rick had included utilities in their rent after the shoe incident and Abed had found a phone that closely resembled the DARSIT.

Annie plucked the phone from its novelty stand and listened with more than a little reluctance.

"Honey, are you there? I just wanted-"

She grasped the speaker to stop the hurried string of words. Annie had recognized her father's voice from the very first word, but didn't trust herself to stay composed during a conversation with him. The only two phone calls she'd taken of the dozens he'd made the past month didn't end in a way she wanted publicly displayed.

Without so much as a word on her end, Annie carried the phone back to her room. He could wait. After all the time he made her wait, he could stand to do some himself.

"Hello," she prefaced, finding herself unsure of how to address the man on the other end of the line.

"Annie." She could hear the relief in his voice. "Annie, I know this isn't an easy thing to hear. I know what I did was unfair. I know-"

Annie cut him off. "Inexcusable," she corrected, her angry fingers tightening into a fist around the phone, "It was inexcusable."

"Dammit Annie, don't you think I realize that?" her father demanded. He adjusted his tone and forced himself without displaying so much of the frustration he was feeling. "But it's not an excuse I'm asking from you- jus time."

Annie swallowed hard and stayed mute. As much as she wanted to forgive and forget, she couldn't seem to leave behind the mentality of the mixed up child she'd been when he'd left. It was so much easier to hold onto the naïveté that you just didn't do something like that to someone you loved.

"Fine." The man she'd once so adored sighed resignedly, taking her silence as an unwillingness to continue the conversation. "You have my address. Just… stop by when you have the time. Please. I know Sasha and the kids would love to meet you."

A harsh sound of the dial tone rung in Annie's ears before she could so much as open her mouth to respond. She knew about Sasha. Her father had wasted no time in dropping that bomb. And honestly, there was no reason he should. Annie had no problem with the idea of him getting remarried. Her parents were toxic together, and the fact that her father had finally moved on from their mess of a marriage only backed up his claim that he'd changed.

But "the kids" was a recent revelation. Not _her_ kids- _the_ kids. Implying the strong possibility of half-siblings her father hadn't bother to mention in combined half hour of their conversations. The admission left Annie with the sinking feeling that she was being replaced. She despised the fact that she felt that way, and she blamed her father for holding it over her head.

There had been a bitterness building up inside Annie, and the last few hours had brought it frighteningly close to the surface. Like most hatred, her self-hatred was born of fear; fear of what had been and who she was, and that the past could so easily disrupt her oddly idyllic life.

Without so much as a second thought about the noise it would cause or the damage it would do, Annie tossed the bright red phone across the room and flopped backwards onto her bed. The device skipped across the carpet before hitting her dresser with a rather unimpressive "thunk."

**Author's Note:**

> I've been wanting to write this for a while. Actually, I planned on doing this as a sort of Hanukkah themed piece. But it would really work any time of year. I mention the timeline since, in this, Troy still shares a room with Abed.
> 
> This first part is so short because it's just the introduction (teaser?) I only posted this now because I figured if I didn't I would likely lose confidence and stop writing it. Proper chapters will only be two or three in number (after this) but will be considerably longer. So a long-ish one shot/short story.


End file.
